Edward Douglass White

“ But while the general rule is well founded and the exception or limitation by which it is asserted to be qualified is well settled, it has no relation to the case in hand, since the particular action of the city in question concerned a mere permission to exercise a facility as a license, given long after the creation of the railway corporation, and not inherently or in any degree necessarily controlling its power to discharge its corporate attributes. ”

“ Under this statement it becomes at once apparent that the court below rightly decided that the contract right asserted had no existence, since, on the very face of the consent which was given, a mere right to occupy was conveyed, without any contract as to time, and which therefore, taking the best view for the railroad, amounted to conferring upon it a mere license to put and use a track upon the sidewalk, and therefore subject to the power of the city to revoke whenever it deemed the municipal interest required it to do so. ”

“ It was not possible, however, from the track on the sidewalk to directly reach such warehouse, as, along the block where it fronted on Salisbury street, tracks were laid between the warehouse and the spur track, which, for the purposes of the railroad, were depressed below the level of the street and sidewalk, and thus the spur track on the sidewalk was only available for parking cars, or as a team track, and was alternately in use for one or the other of these purposes when the city adopted the assailed ordinance directing the removal of the spur track. ”